'Handbook of Mesopotamia. Vol. I. 1918' [‎219] (228/568)

COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY 219
was skin-wool taken from dead animals, and the quality of the clip
deteriorated accordingly. The practice of false packing, i. e. including
dung-locks and dirty lumpy pieces rolled with good fleeces in order
to increase the weight, has resulted in a lessened demand for Meso-
potamian wool in Europe, except at reduced prices. The charac
teristics of the three principal varieties of wool, viz. Arab, Awassi,
and Karadi have already been described (see pp. 186-7).
Baghdad is the principal centre of the wool trade in Mesopotamia ;
from there large consignments are sent Basra to the United
Kingdom, France, Germany, and Austro-Hungary ; all three varieties
are exported. Wool-dealing in Baghdad is very speculative, and the
prices at which the wool is sold are often as high as, or higher
than, prices in Europe. The method of purchase is as follows:
merchants advance money to Arab and Kurdish flockmasters or
heads of tribes some months before the wool season commences, and
agree to pay the market price of the day of delivery at an appointed
station ; sometimes a sheikh or agha requiring money to pay his tax
gets an advance for that purpose from a merchant, and agrees in
return to make his followers deliver their wool to him ; the wool is
brought to Baghdad or other centres of the trade, whei'e it is sorted
and washed in a careless manner, and subsequently packed in bales
weighing 340 lb. Prices in Baghdad in 1912 were : for Arab wool,
washed, 18s. to 20s., for Awassi wool, unwashed, 16s. to 17s. 6ti.,
and for Karadi wool, unwashed, 15s. 6c?. to 17s. per 34:-375 lb. Of
the quantity exported from Baghdad in that year, amounting to
34,039 bales, 37 per cent, went to the United Kingdom, 32 per cent,
to France, 21 per cent, to America, and 5^- per cent, to Germany.
The amount of wool exported from Basra, and including Baghdad,
has varied from 17,624 bales, valued at £123,368, in 1908 to 44,392
bales, valued at ,£310,744, in 1913.
Wool markets in upper Mesopotamia are at Mosul and Diarbekr;
in Mosul there are a few merchants who purchase wool for the
European markets, but the greater part is sent on to Baghdad or
Aleppo, and sold there. Wool from Mosul is sent down the Tigris
to Baghdad on rafts, and is of the Awassi and Karadi varieties ;
in 1912 wool to the value of £79,000 was exported from Mosul, of
which £57,000 worth went to the United Kingdom and £22,000 to
other countries. Of the wool in the Diarbekr district 90 per cent, is of
the Karadi variety. The wool is washed, pressed, and packed in bales
of 100 okes. It was sent to Alexandretta, whence it was exported
for the most part to London.
There is a small export of wool from Arabistan, which amounted
in 1910-11 to 407 tons, and in 1913 to 350 tons, valued at £13,473